Golden Bird Open 2026 will consist of workshops, socials and competitions
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Lourd Vijay thinks of social jive as India-centric. “The Anglo-Indians left it to us as a legacy. This kind of jive doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world,” says the founder of Bengaluru’s Lourd Vijay’s Dance Studio (LVDS), a pioneer in introducing Latin and social dances to India.In his view, interest in this sort of jive “specific to Bengaluru, Mumbai around Bandra and Bow Barracks in Kolkata, where the Anglo-Indian community thrived,” has been rising. “Social jive has had a big comeback,” says Lourd, the festival director of Golden Bird Open 2026, a three-day celebration of West Coast Swing and Social Jive, which will be held in the city between August 14 and 16.The idea for having social jive as a major part of the festival, “is to celebrate what we already have,” he says. It is also, he says, a good complement to the West Coast Swing, a dance form with roots in Lindy Hop, which has, “thanks to Instagram”, gotten quite popular in recent times.“We have been doing it only for the last three to four years in India, and the community is still small. I am hoping that the jive community will start adding to the West Coast Swing community,” he says.
